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I am not sure how you can stay at a company for more than 24 months (maybe 48 for FAANGMULA) without there becoming an enormous gap between your compensation an

I am not sure how you can stay at a company for more than 24 months (maybe 48 for FAANGMULA) without there becoming an enormous gap between your compensation and market compensation. In Canada, you become a veteran at 18 months it seems.

gnicholas 5y ago
In case anyone else was wondering about FAANGMULA, it's apparently: FB, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. Having never heard of this acronym before, I'd be curious to know how that list was put together. Is it a function of the size of their engineering teams, compensation, or something else? What would be the next company or two in line for this list?
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  I have mostly seen it used to refer to a tier of high paying leetcode type organizations. It was an extension of FAANG, which was coined by an investment show host.
- myrryr 5y ago
  It is the ability to change your compensation while staying in the company. Which in part is "number of engineering teams" rather than the size of any one of them. You can change project / pay scale without changing company.
myrryr 5y ago
Yeah, this is the real problem. Since a job hop typically nets you an extra 10k/y 6 years in a job is going to have you down 60k/y. Why would you do that to yourself? In saying that, I've stayed longer in some rolls than the money would imply, but that is because some places are amazing, and there is a lot to be said for a place which treats you well.
- sgtnoodle 5y ago
  To me this feels a lot like that anecdote about poor people struggling to become wealthy because they buy cheaper boots that wear out faster. If you change jobs frequently chasing relatively inconsequential salary increases, you're perhaps going to miss more lucrative opportunities. My first internship at Toyota barely paid anything (relative to a bay area internship), but I stuck around for 4 years because the work was interesting and fun. It helped hone my technical skills, and the value from networking from that job continues to pay off 12 years later. Since I graduated, I've been at three different companies. I've stuck around to see projects through their hardest points, and only left for exciting new technical opportunities. The first one with the lowest salary has in time been worth the most in equity. The one with the highest salary has in time been worth the least, but the liquidity at that point in my life was nice. I took a huge salary cut when joining my current company, but I had a feeling that it was a good group of people. It's been almost 6 years now, and I can only describe my experience as an embarrassment of riches. You could write my experience off as luck or individual talent, but I think a part of my success has come from my work ethic. I work to feel useful, solve interesting problems and create tangible value. It seems like if you focus on that, everything else tends to fall into place. A college age friend once joined a project I was on, as a remote contract technician. He asked me for advice on how to become a full time engineer. I told him to figure out how to be as productive as possible by automating his job away, and document it. He ended up being 4x more productive than the other techs getting paid 3x as much, and six months later was a full time employee with a bay area salary and equity.
tayo42 5y ago
I always hear this but I work at a company maybe a tier below the acronym, Public and a household name, and unless I go to a company like Google or fb most companies seem to be a lateral move at best even with the higher title. I'm coming up on 5 years. Stock did well last year so I made a little over 300k, this year I think I'm on track for mid 200s
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  You are already sitting near the top. For us more average people, jumps are 10-20% a year.
  - seattle_spring 5y ago
    Mid-200k is not anywhere close to near the top. That's a low L4 package at mid-sized companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Stripe, etc.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      To be fair, those companies are not mid in terms of compensation. They’re probably the ones after the very top FANG and some HFT/fintech firms.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I am not sure how you can stay at a company for more than 24 months (maybe 48 for FAANGMULA) without there becoming an enormous gap between your compensation and market compensation There are 2 types of companies: One type will frequently re-evaluate compensation and prioritize employee retention. Compensation follows or exceeds market rate. The other type will lock in compensation at hire time and try to skate by on 3% raises, or moderate raises at periodic promotions. Employee churn is high. The latter type of company tends to be smaller shops run by older generations of managers who grew up in different times. They also tend to be unpleasant places to work for numerous reasons. But it's not really the norm in any modern tech company that knows what they're doing.
- taway647393 5y ago
  I'm a week from signing another offer and leaving Microsoft for that reason. It might be surprising, but it is like the "smaller shops" you described here. The annual increase is only 2-4%, and promotion increase, from any level until a few levels above senior, is only 5% on average. You usually don't get both on the higher side if you get promoted. So if you get promoted from mid to senior (an excellent employee), you expect to get a 7-8% increase at that year. It actually made me very depressed to stay here because of that. The attrition is high (relative to other FAANGMULA) but surprisingly not as high as you would expect. Many stay because they are too lazy to interview, and most of them start to become lazy workers.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  > But it's not really the norm in any modern tech company that knows what they're doing How many modern tech companies "know what they're doing" when it comes to retention though?
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Not even FAANG, it would seem.

gnicholas 5y ago

In case anyone else was wondering about FAANGMULA, it's apparently: FB, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. Having never heard of this acronym before, I'd be curious to know how that list was put together. Is it a function of the size of their engineering teams, compensation, or something else? What would be the next company or two in line for this list?

MattGaiser 5y ago
I have mostly seen it used to refer to a tier of high paying leetcode type organizations. It was an extension of FAANG, which was coined by an investment show host.
myrryr 5y ago
It is the ability to change your compensation while staying in the company. Which in part is "number of engineering teams" rather than the size of any one of them. You can change project / pay scale without changing company.

myrryr 5y ago

Yeah, this is the real problem. Since a job hop typically nets you an extra 10k/y 6 years in a job is going to have you down 60k/y. Why would you do that to yourself? In saying that, I've stayed longer in some rolls than the money would imply, but that is because some places are amazing, and there is a lot to be said for a place which treats you well.

sgtnoodle 5y ago
To me this feels a lot like that anecdote about poor people struggling to become wealthy because they buy cheaper boots that wear out faster. If you change jobs frequently chasing relatively inconsequential salary increases, you're perhaps going to miss more lucrative opportunities. My first internship at Toyota barely paid anything (relative to a bay area internship), but I stuck around for 4 years because the work was interesting and fun. It helped hone my technical skills, and the value from networking from that job continues to pay off 12 years later. Since I graduated, I've been at three different companies. I've stuck around to see projects through their hardest points, and only left for exciting new technical opportunities. The first one with the lowest salary has in time been worth the most in equity. The one with the highest salary has in time been worth the least, but the liquidity at that point in my life was nice. I took a huge salary cut when joining my current company, but I had a feeling that it was a good group of people. It's been almost 6 years now, and I can only describe my experience as an embarrassment of riches. You could write my experience off as luck or individual talent, but I think a part of my success has come from my work ethic. I work to feel useful, solve interesting problems and create tangible value. It seems like if you focus on that, everything else tends to fall into place. A college age friend once joined a project I was on, as a remote contract technician. He asked me for advice on how to become a full time engineer. I told him to figure out how to be as productive as possible by automating his job away, and document it. He ended up being 4x more productive than the other techs getting paid 3x as much, and six months later was a full time employee with a bay area salary and equity.

tayo42 5y ago

I always hear this but I work at a company maybe a tier below the acronym, Public and a household name, and unless I go to a company like Google or fb most companies seem to be a lateral move at best even with the higher title. I'm coming up on 5 years. Stock did well last year so I made a little over 300k, this year I think I'm on track for mid 200s

MattGaiser 5y ago
You are already sitting near the top. For us more average people, jumps are 10-20% a year.
- seattle_spring 5y ago
  Mid-200k is not anywhere close to near the top. That's a low L4 package at mid-sized companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Stripe, etc.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    To be fair, those companies are not mid in terms of compensation. They’re probably the ones after the very top FANG and some HFT/fintech firms.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I am not sure how you can stay at a company for more than 24 months (maybe 48 for FAANGMULA) without there becoming an enormous gap between your compensation and market compensation There are 2 types of companies: One type will frequently re-evaluate compensation and prioritize employee retention. Compensation follows or exceeds market rate. The other type will lock in compensation at hire time and try to skate by on 3% raises, or moderate raises at periodic promotions. Employee churn is high. The latter type of company tends to be smaller shops run by older generations of managers who grew up in different times. They also tend to be unpleasant places to work for numerous reasons. But it's not really the norm in any modern tech company that knows what they're doing.

taway647393 5y ago
I'm a week from signing another offer and leaving Microsoft for that reason. It might be surprising, but it is like the "smaller shops" you described here. The annual increase is only 2-4%, and promotion increase, from any level until a few levels above senior, is only 5% on average. You usually don't get both on the higher side if you get promoted. So if you get promoted from mid to senior (an excellent employee), you expect to get a 7-8% increase at that year. It actually made me very depressed to stay here because of that. The attrition is high (relative to other FAANGMULA) but surprisingly not as high as you would expect. Many stay because they are too lazy to interview, and most of them start to become lazy workers.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
> But it's not really the norm in any modern tech company that knows what they're doing How many modern tech companies "know what they're doing" when it comes to retention though?
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Not even FAANG, it would seem.